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June 30, 2017

Benoît Bastien selected for Under-21 EURO Final 2017

French international referee Benoît Bastien has been assigned to take charge of this year's UEFA Under-21 EURO Final between Germany and Spain.

Having performed well both in Portugal - Serbia and Czech Republic - Italy in the group stage, the 34-year old from Épinal, Eastern France, will follow in the footsteps of several reknown officials who handled the final games at previous Under-21 EURO editions - such as Damir Skomina, Björn Kuipers, Paolo Tagliavento, Matej Jug and Szymon Marciniak.

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Comments:

I'm really happy to read his name underneath the final appointment. Having seen him performing in the French League several times, I think he is a referee with great potential. @Chefren or @Niclas: Do you think he could be considered as a candidate for CL debut this season?

Kruzliak would deserve a CL-debut in my opinion. I have seen him quite often, once I even wrote a report about him, and he is a good referee in my opinion. Mostly good management, good foul detection, not afraid to take decisions. Maybe a bit card-heavy, but not overdone. I havent seen him during this tournament, it might be that he dissapointed a little, but he would certainly deserve an appointment.

Vicandi Garrido has been a disappointment. He did the CORE program and was expected to be a great promise, but after three seasons he has been demoted. I wish him the best and hope he recovers and gets to be promoted again.

CORE is an acronym of Centre of Refereeing Excellence. There are UEFA CORE editions as well as domestic editions. The programme is directed to young, perspective referees according to national football federations.

I am not sure, whether there will still be observers in the stadium. Maybe just in a coaching role.The idea of DFB is, that they know the qualities of their top referees also without marks. And there is no need to know exactly, who is the best and who is the tenth best overall. Important is to know, who is the best choice for which game.I think, they are right in this aspect (even independent from VAR). I mean, we as spectators also have a pretty good idea of the qualities of each referees without knowing the official marks. So why should that be different for the DFB referee committee?

I must say that I agree with Niclas here: it looks weird in the Spanish system when the marks don't support the actual rankings. UEFA elite referees are 6, 7, and 9 which, if you go by a strict performance principle, should not happen.

OT: CL and EL 1st QF Round appointments are released. Most interesting appointment is Mattias Gestranius in Crvena Zvijezda-Floriana. Previously cat1 referees were appointed in 1st QF Round if they were appointed for U19 or U21 EURO. Did not expect cat1 in this round this year.

Good performance by Bastien - correct cards, sovereign control level, good authority. Very good fitness and positioning.

Points for consideration: IMO too uncommunicative, best example was a free kick / wall positioning issue in the 1st half, instead of going to the centre of attention and talking (!) to the players he preferred to use his whistle. Rather top-down way of communicating also in direct referee-player-interactions. Minor flaws in terms of respecting the minimum distance at throw ins and corners (83' and 87')...

I would like to add that Bastien was brilliantly prepared regarding tactic of both teams. He read the game superbly, was able to distinguish who wanted to play football and who wanted to play 'dirty-football' in certain passages of play. It's worth of praise that UEFA hired football analytics to instruct referees before games.

Bastien didn't want to issue yellow cards too early. He was lucky with public warnings that there was level of them (2 vs 2). He also didn't hesitate to book three German players within five minutes, so he is able to make some unpopular decisions (like some no-foul calls when players fell down too easily in order to win free kick).

I already reported his style on this blog. It's not the problem in my eyes as long as the referee is respected. Not every referee has to be Mateu Lahoz. ;)

All in all, a practically flawless tournament for French team what has to be a very good sign for their future. I expect Bastien in Elite Group soon.

Actually I agree with every single word written by Niclas and Ray regarding the analysis of Bastien's performance tonight.Just like Ray I was impressed by the outstanding timing of issuing the public warnings and YC's. No unnecessary early YC's, but not hesitating to step in strongly when the match demanded such.And just like Niclas I noticed the rather authoritarian approach in the personal contacts, a little stiff at times. Of course not every ref should be like Mateu Lahoz, but with the Spaniard an extreme example is mentioned. Having said that, tonight Bastien's approach didn't have any negative influence on acceptance nor match control, so no need for reducing the mark because of that.However, in my opinion the way a referee communicates, or rather, the different ways a referee is able to communicate, can make the difference between being a very good or an excellent referee.All in all for me a very satisfying performance tonight, and a very satisfying tournament overall for the French.